Newman J.J. han, PhD

Newman brings deep scientific expertise and extensive legal experience to help biotech and pharmaceutical clients build and protect intellectual property portfolios that add business value. His practice focuses on the development and execution of comprehensive, worldwide IP strategies from early-stage portfolio planning through prosecution and beyond.

Newman's technical experience spans a broad range of cutting-edge biotechnologies and therapeutic technologies, including the CRISPR-Cas gene-editing system, gene therapies, RNA-based therapeutics, peptide- and microbe-based therapies, small molecule combination therapies, nucleic acid vaccines, cell-based agriculture, systems biology, biomanufacturing, and strain engineering. He has also worked for clients in the agtech, foodtech, and dietary supplement sectors.
Beyond patent prosecution, Newman has performed freedom-to-operate, landscape, and invalidity analyses, and supported due diligence and litigation matters.

Prior to joining McNeill, Newman spent ten years as a patent agent at Cooley LLP. Earlier in his career, he worked as a part-time intern at the Office of Technology Transfer at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), where he assisted in establishing patent filing strategies, conducting patent landscape analyses, and evaluating licensing opportunities. Concurrently, as a postdoctoral fellow under Dr. Robert Martienssen, an HHMI investigator at CSHL, Newman conducted pioneering research in genomics and epigenetics.

Newman earned his PhD in molecular and cellular biology from the CSHL-SUNY Stony Brook combined graduate program, where his doctoral research explored the impact of DNA transposable elements on allelic diversity at CSHL and the effects of microRNA (miR-124) silencing on neuronal differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells at SUNY Stony Brook. He also holds an MS in Life Sciences from POSTECH, where he characterized the roles of MADS-box genes through T-DNA insertional mutagenesis.

Newman has authored and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications in leading scientific journals, including Plant Cell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
(PNAS), Journal of Neuroscience, and Plant Journal. He is also a named co-inventor on U.S. Patent No. 8,785,724.

Select Publications

“Pod Corn is Caused by Rearrangement at the Tunicate1 Locus,” Plant Cell 24:2733-2744, 2012
(coauthor).

“A New Binding Motif for the Transcriptional Repressor, REST, Uncovers Large Gene Networks Devoted to Neuronal Functions,” Journal of Neuroscience 27:6729-39, 2007 (coauthor).

“Reciprocal Actions of REST and a MicroRNA Promote Neuronal Identity,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 103:2422-2427, 2006 (coauthor).

“Functional Analyses of the Flowering Time Gene OsMAD50, the Putative SUPPRESSOR OF OVEREXPRESSION OF CO1/AGAMOUS-LIKE 20 (SOC1/AGL20) Ortholog in Rice,” Plant Journal
38:754-764, 2004.

“The OsFOR1 Gene Encodes a Polygalacturonase-inhibiting Protein (PGIP) that Regulates Floral Organ Number in Rice,” Plant Molecular Biology 53:357-369, 2003 (coauthor).

“Flower-preferential Poly (A) Binding (PAB) Protein Gene from Rice,” Plant Science 165:103-112, 2003
(coauthor).

“T-DNA Insertional Mutagenesis for Activation Tagging in Rice,” Plant Physiology 130:1636-1644, 2002 (coauthor).